Content and Stuff

Monday, 1 June 2015

Did I become stupid?

So recently I've been working my way through my small collection of 3DS games. The first one I pulled off my shelf was Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and I'm having a grand old time but holy shit does it make me feel stupid.

A lot of the stuff I'm doing in the game I'm doing from memory but I decided to stop and take my time and talk to some of the NPCs. A lot of the time I can get what certain characters are hinting at but I can't help but feel like I have become considerably stupider when it comes to this kind of thing. I have NO fucking idea how my child self, without the internet, figured some of the shit out in this game. Granted I've not resorted to using GameFAQs yet for my current play through but I'm putting that more down to my memory than my smarts.

It's the same kind of thing with old action games on things like SNES and Mega Drive. I die a lot more now than I remember doing back then and I can't seem to get as far as I used to. Granted, I think it's because I'm out of practice but I just don't have the patience for multiple attempts at old games anymore. As a kid my collection was a lot smaller and my backlog nonexistent so I guess I didn't mind sitting there and grinding runs in order to get good. Now, when I start dying I just shut the thing off and play something else, my skill is being ruined by my vast choice of games.

I think there is an argument to be made that the internet does spoil a lot of gamers nowadays. Way back then, when Internet access was extremely limited we couldn't just resort to a quick Google search for an answer and we had to play a bit smarter and be a bit more persistent in order to see those endings. I also can't help but feel that modern gaming is a lot easier than it used to be. We are constantly having our hand held by overly long tutorials and way point markers telling us where to go at all times and unfortunately a lot of people, including myself, become overly reliant on shit like that.

Doing a bit of retro gaming is good for you I think, gets those old gaming senses that you may have lost to brain dead current gen shit going and the end result of beating a game that doesn't hold your hand is super satisfying. I think I'm going to force myself to be a bit more persistent with these older games and not just give up to go play something else. Can't moan about current gen being too easy if I give up on the retro stuff too quickly for being too hard.